Publicado em "Proceedings of EDULEARN09 Conference", ISBN 978-84-612-9802-0; Nowadays, when we refer to the Web and its importance in the teaching and learning process, we no longer think of read-only contents, but in the supporting infrastructure which allows to create and share contents and a space for collaboration and discussion, ideas associated to the concept Web.2.0. The blog, as a means to deploy the concept ‘on-line interaction’ is, according to Granieri, “the most accessible and natural tool for sharing and publishing: in addition to text, images movies and also sound will be increasingly disseminated, because of increasing speed of data transmission" (p. 31) [1]. It is therefore natural that the use of the blog is more and more frequent as a resource, pedagogical strategy or in other capacities at all levels of teaching [2].
In this paper, an exploratory study is presented based on some blogs, focusing on: the methodology for collection of text and multimedia materials; treatment and analysis of data with the NVivo software; findings and further evolution perspectives.
The conclusions to derive are: a) the users’ spontaneous interventions show characteristics of basic thinking; b) evidence of critical thinking can be found in two contexts: as reaction to a direct challenge...

Creativity can be defined the capacity of an individual to produce something original and useful. An important measurable component of creativity is divergent thinking. Despite existing studies on creativity-related cerebral structural basis, no study has used a large sample to investigate the relationship between individual verbal creativity and regional gray matter volumes (GMVs) and white matter volumes (WMVs). In the present work, optimal voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was employed to identify the structure that correlates verbal creativity (measured by the verbal form of Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) across the brain in young healthy subjects. Verbal creativity was found to be significantly positively correlated with regional GMV in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), which is believed to be responsible for language production and comprehension, new semantic representation, and memory retrieval, and in the right IFG, which may involve inhibitory control and attention switching. A relationship between verbal creativity and regional WMV in the left and right IFG was also observed. Overall, a highly verbal creative individual with superior verbal skills may demonstrate a greater computational efficiency in the brain areas involved in high-level cognitive processes including language production...

Creativity is primarily investigated within the neuroscientific perspective as a unitary construct. While such an approach is beneficial when trying to infer the general picture regarding creativity and brain function, it is insufficient if the objective is to uncover the information processing brain mechanisms by which creativity occurs. As creative thinking emerges through the dynamic interplay between several cognitive processes, assessing the neural correlates of these operations would enable the development and characterization of an information processing framework from which to better understand this complex ability. This article focuses on two aspects of creative cognition that are central to generating original ideas. “Conceptual expansion” refers to the ability to widen one’s conceptual structures to include unusual or novel associations, while “overcoming knowledge constraints” refers to our ability to override the constraining influence imposed by salient or pertinent knowledge when trying to be creative. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological evidence is presented to illustrate how semantic processing and cognitive control networks in the brain differentially modulate these critical facets of creative cognition.

Creativity requires the rapid combination and recombination of existing
mental representations to create novel ideas and ways of thinking. The
hippocampal system, through its interaction with neocortical storage sites,
provides a relational database necessary for the creation, updating,
maintenance, and juxtaposition of mental representations used in service of
declarative memory. Given this functionality, we hypothesized that hippocampus
would play a critical role in creative thinking. We examined creative thinking,
as measured by verbal and figural forms of the Torrance Tests of Creative
Thinking (TTCT), in a group of participants with hippocampal damage and severe
declarative memory impairment as well as in a group of demographically matched
healthy comparison participants. The patients with bilateral hippocampal damage
performed significantly worse than comparison participants on both the verbal
and figural portions of the TTCT. These findings suggest that hippocampus plays
a role critical in creative thinking, adding to a growing body of work pointing
to the diverse ways the hallmark processing features of hippocampus serve a
variety of behaviors that require flexible cognition.

The objective of this note is to present
the results of the recently completed employer skills
survey, and to discuss their policy implications. The
analysis finds that there is a skills shortage in Georgia
despite high unemployment. It is difficult for employers,
especially in the modern sector, to find workers with the
required skills. Employers demand not only ‘hard’ technical
skills, but also ‘soft’ social and behavioural skills (such
as openness to experience) as well as higher-order cognitive
skills (such as problem solving and creative thinking). And
these are the skills that young Georgians often lack. Box
one summarizes the main results of the analysis and shows
the core employability skills that young workers lack most
often. The note is organized as follows. Section one looks
at the supply of and demand for skills, and shows that,
despite high unemployment, there is a skills shortage.
Section two examines the demand for skills more closely. It
identifies skills that determine the employers hiring
decisions...

Fonte: International Bureau of Education (UNESCO) in collaboration with the International Academy of Education (IAE)Publicador: International Bureau of Education (UNESCO) in collaboration with the International Academy of Education (IAE)

Tipo: BooksFormato: Printed

ENG

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An agricultural example shows that helping people flourish is an organic and unpredictable process. Like a farmer sowing seeds, someone creates conditions for children to grow as creative and critical thinkers. Creativity cannot be taught ‘directly’, but educational practice can provide the means, opportunities and a fertile environment for the creative mind to flourish. However, fostering creativity in schools is a challenging task, especially for teachers as they have to follow innovative teaching practices and play the new roles of mentor, facilitator and orchestrator of learning. This booklet focuses on eight key principles that primary and secondary teachers can follow in order to cultivate creative thinking in students. These principles are mainly inspired from a review of evidence-based research on creativity and innovation in educational contexts, as well as from authors’ own experiences as educators and life-long learners. The eight leading principles, which can easily be followed by teachers worldwide, are the following: promote creative thinking through all school subjects; influence creative thinking through well-designed learning spaces; increase the use of open questions; engage learners in meaningful and authentic activities; enhance creativity through collaboration; make efficient use of educational technologies; allow for mistakes and sensible risk-taking; and...

Dual process models of cognition suggest there are two kinds of thought:
rapid, automatic Type 1 processes, and effortful, controlled Type 2 processes.
Models of creative thinking also distinguish between two sets of processes:
those involved in the generation of ideas, and those involved with their
refinement, evaluation and/or selection. Here we review dual process models in
both these literatures and delineate the similarities and differences. Both
generative and evaluative creative processing modes involve elements that have
been attributed to each of the dual processes of cognition. We explore the
notion that creative thinking may rest upon the nature of a shifting process
between generative and evaluative modes of thought. We suggest that through a
synthesis application of the evidence bases on dual process models of cognition
and from neuroimaging, together with developing chronometric approaches to
explore the shifting process, could assist the development of interventions to
facilitate creativity.; Comment: 17 pages; accepted for publication in Thinking & Reasoning (special
issue on insight and creative thinking)

Many creativity methods follow similar structures and principles. Design
Patterns capture such invariants of proven good practices and discuss why, when
and how creative thinking methods match various situations of collaboration.
Moreover patterns connect different forms with each other. Once we understand
the underlying structures of creative thinking processes we can facilitate
digital tools to support them. While such tools can foster the effective
application of established methods and even change their properties, tools can
also enable new patterns of collaboration.; Comment: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Collaborative
Innovation Networks COINs15, Tokyo, Japan March 12-14, 2015
(arXiv:1502.01142)

Nurturing creative thinking abilities in all learning areas and subjects is one of the cornerstones and ideals of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) in South Africa. This article reports on the results obtained with a pilot study that set out to determine the extent to which creativity is presently nurtured in the History classroom. A qualitative study by means of semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with learners (n = 4) and teachers (n = 2) of History at a secondary school was conducted to determine learner and teacher perceptions related to the nurturing of creativity through the instructional practices of teachers applied during teaching and learning. The results revealed that the nurturing of creativity has not yet become reality in the History classroom. It was disconcerting to note that direct instruction dominates the teaching and learning of History and that very little opportunity for practical experience and interaction during teaching and learning exists. The article concludes with recommendations to teachers on how to purposefully enhance creativity during the teaching of History. This pilot study was conducted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for a BEd Honours degree, and to set the scene for a more extended study on creative thinking in History with larger groups of learners and teachers.

To create unique and appropriate learning opportunities and environments and to nurture the development of creative thinking abilities among learners are some of the demands for creative thinking currently expected of teachers globally and also in South Africa. Creative thinking in academic context assumes, among other things, the ability to generate a variety of original ideas, to see different viewpoints and elaborate on ideas. We report on the findings of a quantitative pilot investigation by means of experimental research utilizing an ex post facto design to determine the status quo regarding the creative thinking abilities of a hetrogeneous group of 207 pre-service teachers studying at a South African university, using the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA) and a Partial Least Squares (PLS) exploration into the relationship between contextual factors and the students' creative thinking abilities. Strong correlations were found among a variety of contextual factors such as the type of school model and culture and creative thinking abilities and also between specific contextual factors such as the choice of role model and socio economic and acculturation factors and certain creative thinking abilities. This research explores a largely unknown field...